Thursday, January 08, 2015

I try to make it a practice this time of year to look
back on the past year’s writing efforts. I started to do that recently but then I was
sidetracked.Nothing new in that.

I’m working on a story on David Halton’s fascinating
biography of his father Matthew (Dispatches
From The Front). My muddled writing approach to this and other projects
found me fumbling around in a bookcase looking for Churchill’s Second World War
series.On the middle shelf, next to The Gathering Storm, I stumbled onto a
book my uncle had written.

It is entitled Modern
Magazines.At 238 pages, it was
nicely bound and almost totally completed seventy-six years ago in 1936. I’m quite certain there was never a final
edition published.J.J. Wood believed that
magazines needed to be studied and enjoyed.As Jack says in his foreword: “Undoubtedly,
many people do not even know of the existence of magazines which would give
them the greatest pleasure and profit."

For many years until his death in 1959, Jack taught
English to vocational students at Westdale High School in Hamilton.This particular book, one of many of his I
have around the house, came out of his belief that students needed something
more appropriate and accessible to their day-to-day lives than the standard English
course fare. The book was comprehensive and through.Uncle Jack wrote quite well.While I’m not an expert, I imagine that there
have been some courses offered somewhere on Modern Magazines.It is probably fair to say though that they
didn’t catch on like, say, Computer Science and Technology has today.

All this brought me back in my own self-centred way to my
own writing.Have I written anything
this year that someone would look a back on in 78 years and even care about?

Let’s see.

Like others, I spent too much time following Toronto
politics.To justify this dalliance, I
reviewed Robyn Doolittle’s book Crazy Town. http://whenthemayorsmiles.blogspot.ca/2014/09/crazy-town.html.I’m
guessing that the antics of the leaders of Ford Nation will prompt as much head shaking
in the late 21st century as they have in the in the past four years.

What will our banking system be like in 2092? Will we
even have one? I’ve argued that right
now we don’t have one that works for a good number of our citizens.In a blog piece at www.hamiltonjustice.ca I came back to a theme that I’ve touched on
before.We need accessible banking
services. Uncle Jack would find that amusing, I think, as he had a banking
service in the post office in his day. Here is one of those stories. http://www.hamiltonjustice.ca/did-you-know.php

I believe, though, that my nomination for an article that
is likely to make no sense in 2092 is a story I called Court Rulings of Significance for Ontarians with Low-Incomes.A great title, right? In
this piece, Itried to shed a little
bit of light on one court ruling regarding the social assistance system in
Ontario.This was my greatest challenge
in the past year: making sense of the nonsensical.

I’m hoping in 2092 people will
look at it and say that the system that the idiot blogger tries to describe doesn’t
make any sense.It doesn’t (make sense) and, hopefully, long before then someone will
have figured that out.

Here it is from the blog of www.hamiltonjustice.ca

Court Rulings of Significance for Ontarians with
Low-Incomes

Recently the Supreme Court of Canada made an
announcement of significance for Ontarians with low-incomes.

The ruling related to what is known as the
Surdivall Case.

Here is some history on this case.

Mr. Surdivall is a disabled senior. He
received Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) income support until he
turned 65.

Mr. Surdivall made an innocent reporting
error in 2009 which resulted in him being over paid. By the time the
matter reached the Social Benefits Tribunal, Mr. Surdivall had turned 65 and
was no longer on ODSP. He was ordered to pay half the outstanding balance, at a
rate of $10/month. This amount was more than he could afford.

The law in Ontario says that overpayments can
be recovered. A court (Divisional Court) ruled against Mr.
Surdivall. Their ruling basically said that social assistance recipients
couldn’t challenge rulings for collection of overpayments, no matter how unfair
the circumstances.

However, later a higher court took a
different view. The Court of Appeal confirmed that both the Director of
ODSP and the Social Benefits Tribunal do, in fact, have the ability discretion
to waive collection of overpayments in appropriate circumstances.

Following this ruling, the Director of ODSP
asked the Supreme Court of Canada for permission to appeal. On September
25th of this year, the Supreme Court refused that request.

Mr. Surdivall was represented by Jackie
Esmonde and Cynthia Wilkey from the Income Security Advocacy Centre, a
Specialty Community Legal Clinic. Others involved in presenting the case
were ARCH Disability Law Centre and Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence
Against Women and Children who were represented by Cynthia Pay of Parkdale
Community Legal Services. The Court of Appeal decision can be read here: http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2014/2014onca240/2014onca240.pdf